


Strike stone, strike home (like lightning)

by Sovin



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Middle Earth Setting, Dwarves, Friendship, Getting Together, Other, Polyamory, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4017544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sovin/pseuds/Sovin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laigle, unlucky in love, is blessed with friendship. It would be his luck that when he does fall in love, it's in a way hardly heard of at all. An everyone is a Dwarf Middle Earth AU set after The Hobbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike stone, strike home (like lightning)

**Author's Note:**

> Usual disclaimer here, as I neither own nor claim either Les Misérables or Tolkien's Middle Earth.
> 
> Have an incredibly indulgent everyone is a Dwarf AU set between the end of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, playing with the idea from Appendix A of the Lord of the Rings that A) not all Dwarves are interested in sex and/or romance (!) and B) that they only fall in love once. Which clearly meant there was a need for polyamorous Dwarves and since there is always a need for more Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta, here we are!
> 
> Due to the trouble of names, we're just going to assume that there's some more Dwarven-sounding equivalents that just don't appear here, shhh.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to the lovely [socpuppet](http://www.socpuppet.tumblr.com) for her help with worldbuilding (so many wonderful ideas that just didn't fit, alas!) and to the darling [annaroserae](http://www.annaroserae.tumblr.com) for betaing this for me. You both are invaluable!
> 
> As always, please feel free to come by and chat with me [on tumblr!](http://www.sovinly.tumblr.com)

Laigle has all but given up hope of being lucky in love.

He’s not the sort who would rather devote himself to a craft, certainly. He'll not obsess over the lack, there's a large part of him that longs, quietly and patiently, for someone he would love. Who would love him back. That, now, that would be his luck: to find his One and also find them unable or unwilling to reciprocate, though he'd never begrudge them that.

Yet why should he languish over love, when there's so much to discover in Erebor? It's enough for him to explore the vast halls under the mountain. He's a poor student of the law, to the despair of the scholars and jurists - though Blondeau can look down his pointy noise at someone else - but he's willing to help with repairs and restoration as best he can. They're still ongoing, as younger Dwarves flock to the mountain in search of work and the promise of new paths. It pays poorly, but good will earns him ale at most of the taverns in the marketplace.

So Laigle is content. He has friends a plenty and a beautiful city to explore. He does miss, sometimes, the vastness of the Iron Hills, but there was little for him there. There are those who know him here, Dwarrows who knew his mother and father. It's not utterly alien, even when he misses the feel of softer stone under his well-worn boots.

"Scraggly-bearded Laigle!" a familiar voice calls as he trudges back toward his small dwellings, and he turns to see Grantaire perched on an alcove cut out from the stone, raising a hand in greeting.

Laigle can hardly be offended at that, since it's true, and he laughs, detouring over to greet the other. Another bit of unluck, that his beard is so thin, barely long enough for a few beads and a clasp, and his head as bald as stone. Still, as he leans against the wall, he retorts: "As though yours is as large as your name!"

"But far more respectable than I am, all the same," Grantaire replies, cheerfully enough, which Laigle can hardly begrudge him. He may not be the ideal of Dwarven beauty, but his dark, unruly curls - hair and beard - are enviously thick and braided with subtly placed clasps, an allowable point of vanity. "Your beard is streaked with grey, my friend - either you've aged a century in a second, or you've been out in the dust."

"Ah, but better to win favors from stonemasons than dust from ancient scrolls," Laigle says, shrugging. "None of the honored scholars would seek me there. Is that why you're here, for fear Le Gros would seek you out in the taverns?"

Grantaire snorts, pushing himself to his feet and craning his neck a little to look up at Laigle, short even for a Dwarf. "Le Gros has deplorable and old fashioned ideas of what good smithing looks like, these days, and would have me make a relic of every weapon, dated to the first age. And no, I'd hoped to find you - you must help me seduce Joly from his work and to debauchery, or at least enough that I may introduce you both to a friend of mine, recently arrived."

Laigle would consent for the way that Grantaire's mouth creases up in a true smile at the mention of this friend of his, because to draw that sort of smile takes a skill usually reserved for coaxing fines shapes from corundum, but with the promise of Joly, he finds himself even more eager.

All of them are close, and have other friends they are close to as well, but Joly fits with Laigle as neatly as joins in stone - enough that Laigle wonders, sometimes, down in the iron of his bones, how Joly cannot be his One. Though Joly, for all his wild and impish nature, is far more dedicated to his studies than Laigle or Grantaire have ever been. As the third child of his family, Joly is a dedicated student of healing.

"Well, at this hour of the day, dragging Joly from his medicines will be easy as chipping gypsum from the walls," Laigle points out, with a smile. "Shall we? Or is this friend of yours the sort that I should change out my clothing first?"

Grantaire's grin widens, and he laughs even as he waves for Laigle to follow. "Ah, but who would know you without your patched coat, sewn up enough times that it has thread from every decade of this Age? She'd never recognize you again if you left it behind this time, and I hope you'll get on enough that _that_ isn't a desirable outcome. You may, however, wish to dust yourself off, white beard."

They banter all the way to Joly, and Laigle is happy to let Grantaire lead. He still gets lost, sometimes, in Erebor's cavernous halls and passageways, but Grantaire - who grew up in the Blue Hills and who should be just as disoriented - must have more rock sense than he lets on, because he walks paths without looking, and nods at half the Dwarrows they pass.

As it turns out, they don't need to lure Joly away from his work at all. He spots them at the edge of the infirmary, ducks over to make his excuses and hurries toward them, struggling to finish pulling his vest back on without stopping.

"Are you here to spirit me off to revelries?" Joly asks, looking eager, his dark, straight beard neatly clipped into a queue.

"Grantaire wants to introduce us to a friend," Laigle informs him, giving the word more weight than it needs as he raises his eyebrows.

Joly gasps theatrically, clasping his hand over his heart and adopting a wounded look, any fatigue on his face falling away. "A friend? Are we being replaced?"

Grantaire snorts, rolling his eyes at them, but Laigle can see the uptick at the corner of his mouth. "If anything, you're attempting to usurp her - we knew each other back in the Blue Mountains, though her family traveled quite a while before settling there."

"Well, if anyone could _reign_ in a young Grantaire, she's someone we must meet!" Joly exclaims, gesturing with his solid cane.

"The crowning glory of our lives," Laigle agrees, and Grantaire makes a smart remark about Laigle's bare crown even as he gestures for them to follow, still in a good mood. Ignoring the crack, more fondly amused than anything, Laigle turns to Joly, asking after his day.

Joly is a good natured and well grounded Dwarrow, and at first glance there's little to show he's the son of relatively well off merchants and a successful physician in his own right, just the comparative lack of patches to his clothes and the fine quality of the few gems he wears. He's a good sort, and Laigle is glad to have him for a friend, for his sly smile and quick wit, for his practicality beside his anxious flightiness.

Once they are thoroughly caught up - which doesn't take long, really, since they saw one another only last night - Joly nudges Grantaire. "Tell us about this friend of yours. A smith, too, since we're wending our way down toward the forges?"

"A silversmith," Grantaire agrees. "And mithril true, with an unfortunate penchant for puns."

"Which means she's twice as clever as you are and doesn't need to be drunk to work silver," Bossuet says dryly, though he already thinks she sounds lovely, and Joly stifles a snicker badly.

Grantaire grumbles some more, but waves his hand, and directs them down one more corridor before knocking at the door of a small dwelling. It's not too far from Grantaire's own, and the stonework is charmingly done around the doorframe.

"Musichetta!" he calls, and the door swings open a moment later.

The Dwarrowdam who opens it is indeed lovely, plump and stocky even in her relatively unadorned workdress, her fingers long and clever. Her skin is a few shades darker than either Joly or Grantaire's, if not as dark as Bossuet's, a warm brown that shades almost gold like tiger’s eye in the torchlight, the gold bells worked into the braids of her dark, lush beard glinting in the light.

"Grantaire!" she greets, short enough that she doesn't have to bend to headbutt him as they clutch at one another's shoulders. "And here I'd thought you'd abandoned me for more interesting company."

He scoffs, hold not loosening even as he turns a little to grin at Joly and Bossuet. "I've brought the company to you, and though they're undoubtedly better than me, their merit is questionable."

"Musichetta, at your service," she says, finally breaking free of Grantaire to bow at the waist, her grin cheeky and brown eyes shining. "I am sure you are both company of the highest quality."

"Laigle, at yours," Laigle replies, bowing back with a matching smile.

"And Joly, likewise at your service," Joly echoes, with a bow of his own, beaming at Musichetta as they all straighten. "We must have struck a good ore of fortune, to share your company! Grantaire has good taste in friends as well as alcohol, and knows it, by his smugness."

Musichetta laughs, her bells chiming as she tosses her head. "It seems the fortune is equally shared. Come, share my ale and my table, and tell me more of Erebor."

"I've not been here long, myself, but I will do my best," Laigle promises, following her in. It's clear that she is only recently arrived, her modest belongings still awaiting sorting, but her table is well set, and she has somehow managed to acquire sweet apples to go with the cheese and bread.

The conversation flows as easily as the ale, and they stay up late into the night, fitting together seamlessly, so quickly that Laigle already knows that this is a friendship that will last.

For a while they continue to meet mostly in the context of Grantaire, and some of their other friends – she gets on instantly with their group – but it occurs to Laigle that she’s likely to be lonely in this large Lonely Mountain, so he makes an effort to seek her out. Musichetta makes for delightful company, always ready with a quick wit and interesting observations from her life wandering or in the Blue Mountains, and she makes lovely, intricate things with her talented hands. Joly, without being asked, seems to have noticed what he’s doing and they start to spend time together as well, laughing helplessly at wordplay and always welcoming when he stumbles upon them, only telling him to draw up a seat.

That is not to say that Laigle ceases to spend time with Joly, as they spend time and enough together, especially when a collapsing pillar crushes Bossuet’s lodgings and he moves in with Joly for several months. It is only that Musichetta is warm and genial, sharing drinking and work songs and enthusiastically joining in when they, along with Grantaire when he joins them, come up with new ones that catch on in the tunnels of Erebor.

By the time a year passes, they're fast friends, because Musichetta has managed to wedge herself seamlessly into the layers of their group, fitting in as neatly as if she's always been there, and Laigle is honored and joyful to have her.

It is then, in one of the quiet caverns of calm, that they realize it.

Perhaps Laigle should have suspected it, but it is a surprise, and happens on a quiet evening when he is entertaining Joly and Musichetta with the story of his latest catastrophe, a minor landslide on the outer edges of the city that had sent him sprawling downhill and covered in mud and muck.

"Well, it was through no _fault_ of your own," Joly reassures, his eyes bright as any gem in the treasury as his mouth curves into a sly smile.

Musichetta adds, "Though we appreciate that you _cave_ so quickly to tell us."

Laigle, cheered already, laughs at that, and that sets them off too, occasionally gasping out breathless puns. When they finally manage to get it under control, Laigle pushes himself back up, and something in the back of his mind _settles_.

Some Dwarrows know their One the first time they meet. Some meet again after years or changing circumstances and only then see it. Some think they have no other and contentedly devote themselves to their craft or their family only to suddenly find what they had never thought to look for (and others happily do not). And some realize it only when they have known one another for time enough. There’s no pattern to it, but as soon as it sets into his chest, Laigle _knows_.

It's something that says he wants to be in their lives, wants them to be in his, and it's a knowing as bone deep as his true name. The only certainty that any of them have is that Dwarves love like this _once_. He knows, instinctively, that it's both of them.

And from the way that they're staring back, from the way the warm laughter has swept like a cold draft from the room, they feel the same.

None of them mention it, though, and after a few awkward attempts to regain the easy mood, they disperse. Laigle walks home with something unsettled, like a badly placed stone, wedged in his chest.

Mahal couldn’t be so cruel as this, to offer him something so impossible. Laigle greets misfortune as an old friend, which all Dwarves must to some extent, but this may be too much even for him to endure.

The horrible thing, he finds out over the next few weeks, is just how _well_ he knows them. He knows Musichetta and Joly well enough to know where their daily lives will take them and when, and where they’ll go when they’re unsettled. It is telling that neither of them ever crosses his path either. Sometimes he’ll hear the thud of a cane landing a little too heavily on the echoing floors, or the faint clinking of tiny bells, or perhaps he just imagines it. Nonetheless, his heart _aches_.

Their friends must know that something is off. Bahorel drags him out to drink, little good as it does, but thankfully doesn’t push when Laigle declines to talk. Feuilly just takes a long, quiet look at him, then invites him to come work with him a while, though Laigle’s hands are hardly careful enough for the intricate, precise work that Feuilly does. Enjolras quietly clasps Laigle’s hand and asks, with his usual reserved concerned and deeply furrowed brow, if everything is well. Still, he can’t bring himself to talk about it, and no matter how lonely and miserable he feels, doesn’t seek them out. He feels hollow and echosome, and it is so very forlorn.

There is nothing he wants more than the serene warmth of their company.

In the end, Laigle decides that they're probably all avoiding Grantaire's more conspicuous haunts in case one of the others there, which means it's probably safe to go find him. For once, amazingly, his luck strikes true, because Grantaire is alone in his forge, the fire burning low at the end of the day.

"I was wondering when you'd come perch in my eyrie," Grantaire greets him, with a bit of a grin, sitting on his stool with one elbow propped on his knee, his mass of hair all braided back in a working plait. He holds out his flask, enticing. "Well, take a seat."

"If it helps, I've not been avoiding your company," Laigle tells him, pulling up another stool and accepting the flask, taking a swig. It is good quality, not what Grantaire drinks to drown himself and his reverberating thoughts out, and it burns going down. He offers it back distractedly, looking at the designs etched on Grantaire's work for the day. They’re surprisingly delicate, as always, though there’s something sturdy and solid to his craft.

Grantaire snorts, stretching out his legs. "No, it's that the three of you have been circling one another like skittish apprentices too paralyzed by fear of marring good stone to start carving even the roughest of shapes. Which leaves me to drink alone, or worse, to listen to the stone masons debate the merits of the Khazad-Dûm expedition."

Laigle cannot bring himself to argue the accusation, not when it's true, and he is all the lonelier for it. He sighs, though, uncharacteristically morose. "It would be different if it was just one of them, and I was left to accept that they were meant for one another. This is... There is a reason Mahal made us only to love once, that we say our One, no others."

"There have been instances mentioned in the songs," Grantaire points out, stubborn.

"But this is not a song or a story," Laigle says, accepting the flask back. He can find nothing in himself to laugh at this and stares at his hands despondently. "It cannot be possible that I love both of them and truly, let alone that they love me. To feel that each of them is my One, that must be some cruel new trick of my old friend."

"Love," Grantaire proclaims, "is as faulty as shifting stone after a mine collapse. Mahal may love us, but to know our hearts is hardly a _gift_ \- at least as much as a curse, another way for our folk to trail behind the other races, more beloved of Eru. Why should you not have Two instead of One? Certainly, you've enough of a curse on your luck to warrant a tale - cautionary, perhaps, but a tale none the less, and it is to all of our luck that you're not of a kingly line. I hear tell that Men often marry for convenience more than for love, and have freedom as such to love again if their beloved falls, and that Elves, with their long lives, may have plenty of time to decide their fates.

"But to know our hearts? To know is not fate or a sentence - some may never meet the one they could love, and it hardly means that one's love will be returned! What a useless thing, love. I know a Dwarrowdam, as lovely as the burgeoning spring and worthy to be called Floréal, a weaver and master embroiderer, who does not yet know her One, but allows a banker - a banker, false as pyrite! - to court her. To adorn her in pretty things for the sake of companionship, and does not find herself or her ambitions barred for lack of _love_! There is another of our mutual acquaintance who, without devoting their heart to their craft, would happily go their lifetime without meeting another who pulled at the strings of their heart. Worse still, to know your heart and know that it would be more fruitful to turn your own to your labors, as your One has!

"You, though, have stumbled with your typical grace, or lack thereof, into the richest veins of true gold, and are concerned for lack of knowing, when you would not mine either! Not for fear that either is false, but for fear that your tools and your touch might render them so, and think that each deserves to be crafted with love and care! You must think Mahal a poor craftsman indeed, to stare at riches unimagined for all your life, envisioning what catastrophe might be when your creations could rival the stars! Ah, but you do love, and see love, and are loved, but cannot but sit beside it. It is a cruel thing, crueler than any bitter winter, to stand so close to spring, to forge and fire, and never thaw!"

Laigle thinks Grantaire means it to sound mocking, but it comes out sounding sad and tired and almost amazed, like he has been struck to the core by Laigle’s words. It is an embarrassingly long time before he realizes, abruptly, that Grantaire has found _his_ One. It takes only a moment more to realize it is Grantaire's One whose heart seems to be turned entirely elsewhere, and that Grantaire has lost something he has held as dear and secret as mithril in his many-times-burned-and-scarred heart. Laigle doesn't ask, though, because he knows that if Grantaire has never spoken to them of it and has never changed his braids to show he’s found them, then he must not wish to draw attention to it. While Laigle will respect that, it is painfully sad.

“But what would I even say to them?” Laigle asks, finally. “Even if I accept that I, by some twist of strangeness from my old friend, have two to love, I cannot expect them to return that nor be comfortable with it.”

Grantaire shrugs as though unconcerned, reaching out and tugging affectionately but sharply at Laigle’s beard in a way that abruptly makes him realize how much he’s _missed_ such a dear friend. “Then you carry on as you always do, you strange sky creature. Or you speak to them and the three of you go on sickening romps out in the open air because you have a terrible and utterly disrespectful need to try to prove me eternally wrong.”

That startles a laugh from Laigle, a weight in his chest lifting. “Well, I suppose you can’t get too used to being right, my friend.”

“Good,” Grantaire says, and then, “now perhaps you will all cease in abandoning me to find other and less indulgent company.”

He smiles at that, and banters a little longer before he finally takes his leave, turning Grantaire’s words over and over again in his mind. There is nothing new _but_ realization in his feelings – it is a strange thing, to suddenly see the love he has been nurturing the way a smelter might a fine alloy. He has loved them, he loves them, and it has been building slow and steady in his heart. If his feelings are not returned, then, so be it, and Laigle will draw his happiness from friendship and perhaps will allow Grantaire to conduct him to sorrow while they mourn like circumstance for a night. If by some miracle they are, then it is enough to celebrate the craftwork of their maker.

In the morning, he’s decided that he may as well say _something_ for hopes of retaining friendship than to say nothing and lose everything by default. Of course, there’s the problem of _finding_ them when he’s fairly sure that neither of them wants to be found.

Musichetta’s forge is still warm but empty when he checks there, the scent of fire and silver still ringing in the air, and Joly, surprisingly, is not overworking himself in the infirmary. Their usual haunts are barren, the taverns and shops empty of even in the impressions of their absence, and none of his friends are of any help.

Cosette grasps his elbow and wishes him luck, her tawny skin already darkened and speckled like granite with freckles that shift when she smiles. Bahorel looks pleased even if he’s not helpful, and his lover leans on her axe and laughs herself breathless – Laigle can hardly bring himself to be surprised that she has been let in on the drama, and she seems a good natured sort. Jehan has nothing to contribute, either, but his long, slightly outdated beard sways as he walks away humming any ancient lay that has one of the rare trios, and Laigle feels heartened, at least, by that. He even runs into Éponine, another Blue Mountains Dwarrowdam who travelled with her siblings and Musichetta to the Lonely Mountain, but she has no better answer for him than the others.

A little disconsolate at his inability to find them, Laigle starts to trudge back around toward Grantaire’s forge, hoping that the other Dwarrow might at least have a thought of where to find Joly or Musichetta.

In the strangest turn of luck, which Laigle should attribute to Mahal guiding his feet if he’ll greet ill fortune by name, he takes a quieter path through the marketplace and finds himself face to face with Joly and, a few feet away, Musichetta, both coming from different directions, and he halts, wavering.

“Good morrow,” Joly says, at last, and tries on a tentative smile at the both of them, cheeks and the tips of his ears dusting the same red-brown as the sandy rocks of the Iron Hills. “I have been looking for you!”

“Ah, so it is fate!” Laigle exclaims before he can help himself, falling into the familiar pattern of responding like the feel of his tools in his hands. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d deserted Erebor altogether.”

Musichetta grins, dimples marking her cheeks and lifting the tiredness and worry from her eyes a little. “Do you mean to say that we’ve all spent the day chasing one another ‘round like mice in a kitchen?”

“I suppose so,” Joly says, and that makes his smile a little surer.

“Though perhaps the market is hardly the best place for this manner of conversation?” Musichetta ventures, and Laigle can see a few glances being snuck their way. Erebor isn’t small enough that their avoidance of one another the last month can be broadly known, but none of them desire to be the subject of gossip, especially in this.

Laigle looks over at Joly, who he knows has a few favored quiet places for when the crush of people overwhelms the solidity of hard stone. “Outside, perhaps?”

Joly nods and takes the lead, the slight swaying gait as he leans a little heavy on his cane comforting after so long an absence. He leads them up through the halls, with the easier familiarity of someone who has spent more of their adulthood here – his family moving back to Erebor in the wake of the Battle of the Five Armies. Though grown, Joly had followed his sisters happily, and has had longer to find these quiet places.

There is an unwavering part of Laigle that soars when he steps outside of the grand halls of Erebor, some remnant of his vast and wild Iron Hills that loves the open sky. Cosette, who spent her life in the care of a Dúnedan ranger to the south and therefore away from the embrace of the mountains, understands, though they don’t speak of it often.

Joly leads them to a small balcony that overlooks the side of the mountain, covered enough that the wind doesn’t whip around them. He can still see the damage of the desolation, the frail and thin trunks of the pines that are growing back, and the lush yellow-green grasses that swim around them, with patches of harsh, washed-out soil still devastated by dragon-fire. Musichetta, beside him, hums a few soft measures of the now-familiar song of the Misty Mountains, as though picking up his line of thought. Almost absently, Joly joins in, leaning against the railing of the balcony with his cane held loosely in hand.

Laigle could nearly weep for how strongly he wants this rift between them repaired, reforged like links of iron, so that they could take up the harmonies they’ve woven together again and work their tunes into something strong and lovely.

He is not a courageous Dwarf, but he is an impulsive one, and seeing the hesitation on the faces of those he loves more than any precious metals makes him even more so. He knows he can be charming, but he has never had to try to charm them, and hopes that he never has to start.

“Forgive me, my friends,” he says, meeting Joly’s eyes and then Musichetta’s. “Forgive me, for I love you and could grow that love like the roots of mountains, but I could never be so cruel as to hoard you or expect it in return. You are dear to me, yes, and I have missed your friendship greatly. I have been as foolish as an Elf in a mine to try to avoid you for fear of losing it, and I am but a silly sort of bird.”

“Only a touch feather-brained, to think that you would lose friendship,” Joly says, scolding, but his dark eyes are bright and relieved, one hand shifting up almost as if to reach out to tug at Bossuet’s beard and making do with pulling at his own. “Well. Eru made the mouse, and realizing the error, made the cat in correction. Mahal made our fathers from stone, and realizing the other races would disdain us, made our words and our names and our hearts in correction. No craftsman so great or loving could create this as a flaw, when I know with certainty that you give me greater flight than all four of my wings.”

Enough time has passed since he’s met Joly that Laigle can tell what that means, and the heavy weight in his throat eases a little with a breath of laughter. Still, uncertain, he looks to Musichetta, who watches with unfathomable obsidian eyes, and he fears how deeply they might cut. She finally smiles.

“Did you talk to Grantaire?” she asks him, a spark of affection like light on smoky quartz.

Laigle bobs a bow with a wry grin. “The very same. He was very eloquent on the subject, as skilled with words as with his hands, but that is not why I sought you out, at least not for this. That was my own desire, even if it did need spurring – what better to spark a fire than love? Did you do the same?”

Musichetta nods, looking almost sheepish as she smiles, revealing just a hint of teeth. “Though I hardly needed to – our friendship is old enough that I already knew what he was like to say. As to the rest, likewise. This is a gift I would not spurn, not for all the mithril in the dark mines nor the flowering stars strung onto necklaces.”

“Then we will try?” Laigle asks, breathless with an unforeseen hope.

She smiles and steps forward with a firm stride, offering her hands out to the both of them as the golden bells in her beard catch the sunlight anew. “I can work no mighty spells to know the future, but yes, I would like to try.”

“We shall sound it as carefully as a new tunnel,” Joly promises, carefully propping his cane against a wedge of stone and shifting his weight to his good leg so he can reach out to clasp Musichetta’s hand, and offer his other to Laigle.

It is an impossible dream, to be offered such richness as this, and he can scarcely believe his fortune, but it is worth every misadventure to be given this chance, and earth bury the folk who would comment. Laigle reaches out with work-scuffed hands, and takes each of theirs in his, so warm and comfortably broad that he even the brief moment of fidgeting until their hands settle is so welcome he cannot bear to find it awkward or off-putting.

And then, abruptly, Musichetta laughs, incredulous and delighted, charming and clear, and then Joly joins in – not just a brief giggle at the strange wonderfulness of this place they’ve reached, but a bright, full laugh – and Laigle is helpless to start laughing as well. It is strange, so unusual and amazing that it should be absurd, but he is so inexplicably relieved, so convinced that his bad luck had struck again that he never thought it might be something so completely opposite. If sharing this with them is the one good thing, the one unexpected place he strikes mithril, then Laigle will happily take the rest of his misfortune.

“Sorry,” Musichetta says when all of them have managed to calm a little. “It’s only, we spent all this time avoiding one another, and resolved it so quickly, and I feel a little like a Dwarfling who has just made up with a quarreling friend.”

“This is what we mine, for all our gossip about our friends and their own little dramas,” Joly remarks, attempting a solemn face that’s betrayed by the multi-faceted glee in the smile not quite obscured by his beard. “Though I imagine they’ve had their fill of watching us stumble around in the light.”

Laigle nods, and because he can never help himself, adds, “To be fair, you both are blindingly brilliant.”

Joly flushes again and Musichetta starts to laugh again, grinning as she manages a, “Thanks in part to your sunny disposition.”

“I have missed you both,” Joly tells them, beaming and looking utterly at his ease as he squeezes their hands, then cocks his head. “Though I suppose I should ask… What now?”

A flicker of worry seizes Laigle’s throat, like a sudden shadow from overhead, and he pauses and then recovers himself.

“Well, I imagine we still have plenty of time to discover ourselves, but for now I suppose we’d best find the way to break it to anyone who asks,” he says, and then, with a sudden spark of inspiration, “We should write a song!”

“Oooh, I’ll get my bassoon,” Joly cheers, letting go of their hands to snatch up his cane, perking up with his eyes glinting like the river running below them. “Can we invite Grantaire? I feel like this needs Grantaire – our music is always better when he joins in. Once we work it out, we can see if Bahorel will back us with a drum.”

“Of course we can,” Musichetta agrees, pleased beyond measure and rocking up on the balls of her feet briefly.

Laigle feels his grin grow, his eyes crinkling a little with the force of it. “When we are content with it, we can turn it into a full choral arrangement, and it will have to become a classic for the Age.”

“Or at least a very good drinking song,” Joly chirps. “About three very silly Dwarrows, and full of puns.”

Greatly cheered and buoyant with it, Laigle feels warm as a hearthfire as they head back toward the door, already ruminating on how to compose a new epic.

Musichetta halts, suddenly, just inside the hall they need to take back down to the main parts of Erebor, let alone one of their homes, with a stifled exclamation.

“I’ve nearly forgotten!” she cries, stubborn and smiling. “I’ve not kissed you, yet!”

When neither of them object, only make mock shocked and appalled noises, Musichetta’s grin only widens as she leans up to kiss Laigle. He bends to meet her, and it’s warm and solid and soft, her work calloused hands rough on his sparsely bearded cheeks and her own beard soft and silky where it brushes his skin. It is a long moment before they part, and Laigle watches with love and affection as she moves to kiss Joly next, their hands clasped as they meet like interwoven melodies – an exchange he could watch for hours.

And then Joly turns to him, and Laigle steps in close, and they find one another in the middle, too, with the greater familiarity of years of friendship but the fragility of newness all at once, sweeter than he could ever have known. When they fall apart, Musichetta is beaming at them still.

“We must make time for more of that,” she says.

“We must,” Laigle concurs, suffused with this and them.

“That,” Joly remarks, “likely does not need to go in the song.”

Laigle laughs, and so does Musichetta, and then she and Joly share a look before they suddenly in on either side of him and take his hands in theirs as though they realize he needs them to steady him, tugging him along once more.

Their merriment does not cease, and as they move deeper into the mountain, Laigle’s heart soars as the halls ring with love and laughter.


End file.
